Escape to the Ordinary (55)

Children are the hope of the future.  Children are also major victims of war.

16 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     I've just spent a bad three hours.  We received nine children and four adults who had white phosphorus burns [White phosphorus is a compound that burns fiercely and can set cloth, fuel, ammunition and other combustibles on fire.  Phosphorus burns carry a greater risk of mortality than other forms of burns because the  phosphorus is absorbed into the body through the burned area, resulting in liver, heart and kidney damage, and in some cases multi-organ failure.  White phosphorus continues to burn on the body until it is deprived of oxygen or until it is consumed, often burning right down to the bone.]  It seems that the kids found a phosphorus grenade and lugged it home and under the house.  Some time later it went off.  They ranged in age from about three and up.  It had happened some hours before they came in and they'd been given initial treatment.  Some of the kids' faces and eyes were really puffed up and blistered also arms and legs.  I had a boy of about eight and a girl of about four.  I've no idea how they will turn out.  On only one place did I find phosphorus active (it gives out white fumes until it has burned out).  This P.M. they brought in a wasted little girl of six with a huge abdomen.  It is probably a tumor of the ovary with fluid formation.  She is too sick to undergo surgery and the fluid is too extensive.

One of Gene's photos depicting ordinary life in Guimba

     [Gene feels such compassion for his patients, particularly the young ones, but dwelling on the tragedies does not help him in the fight to save others, so he continues his letter about happier, more ordinary things in his daily life.]

Photo of the interior of a church in Guimba

     Last evening I forgot to tell you of the color pictures I took that noon.  I fear I ruined several.  The outside of the church is very unprepossessing but the inside rather picturesque.  A bunch of nuns (black hood, white habit) were kneeling in the front.  So from the balcony I tried a seven or eight second exposure.  Probably it won't show a thing!  Then I went up to the belfry to take a picture of the town.  Darn if I didn't leave the [long] exposure time on [the] bulb and so moved the camera before the shutter closed!  Then I got in a hurry to catch some kids in front of some carabao carts and didn't change the focus properly!  I took others about the streets.  I tried to get typical town scenes, usually with people and not pictorial masterpieces.  I think it is well to show the ordinary scenes a "tourist" sees. [Looking for the ordinary is one way Gene copes with the horrors of war.]
     This morning I took a little time off and went to market.  It was held in a vacant lot along the street.  The food was limited to vegetables.  There were some unglazed pots.  I had to laugh at the F. [Filipino].  I asked how much and he had a queer look on his face and said 30 centavos.  I'm certain they were usually about 15!  I could fine no straw matting, wooden shoes or baskets.  A lady told me that in usual times they wore leather shoes, though I suppose the poor always wore wooden clogs or went barefoot.  But I did make a purchase - 6 meters of abaca cloth [the abaca plant fibers were used to make twine and the original Manila envelopes, and now are used to make paper tea bags and other paper products] at 50 centavos a meter [about 25¢].  Of course it's only twenty-two inches wide.  It looks like loosely woven linen.  It is dyed of blue green which no doubt will fade.  It is made from a fiber of a plant resembling a banana.  It is a regular cloth and is treated as such.  Washed in soap and water, cut and sewn and etc.  It is used for shirts, dresses, and such.  I may get some more later on.  A fellow gave [Maj.] Hi [Armstrong] two pairs of wooden shoes and he gave me one.  They are not so fancy.  I saw a shirt of a very fine variety.  It is made from pineapple fiber with very tiny threads.  It is almost transparent but with a glossy finish.  There was a lot of embroidery on it.  I've no idea how much it cost.  That type of cloth is said to be used in the National Costume and is worn by the well-to-do in all big occasions.
     The dogs here are the darnedest looking curs.  They always slink around in a very furtive and sullen manner [dogs were occasionally eaten in the Philippines, so maybe they had reason to slink!].  And how they bark at night.  This morning about 4 our guerrilla guards challenged someone walking along the track.  When they received no answer they shot a few times but hit nothing.  Probably it was a couple of hungry Japs heading for the hills that got away from the fight in the big city.  How I like those guerrillas!  They know how to use [American] Indian tactics too!  We feel perfectly safe with them on our perimeter.

Letters Home (54)

14 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     Oh boy - mail!  At last it seems we've established contact.  ...  Sparky [Maj. Francis Adams] just read this joke and darn if I don't believe it.  Two GI's captured a Jap and spent three hours coaching him in English.  When the intelligence officer came to question him, he asked, "Do you speak English?" to which the Jap in great eagerness said "Where do I stand on the rotation plan?" [In an effort to shore up morale, a system was set up in March1944, so that one percent per month of the troops in hardship areas could be allowed to go home for a visit at the discretion of the theater commanders; the use of a lottery system was suggested, but it didn't work to the satisfaction of most of the troops.]  ...

Japanese dual purpose gun (27 mm anti aircraft gun) in Guimba

     This morning I took a picture of a Jap dual purpose gun that commanded the road near us and of the Jap ammo car on the track that had been blown up.  I looked in at the rice mill where rice is polished and put in bags.  I can see why brown rice isn't popular.  The stuff is just like barley with the hull on!  And I located where they hold cock fights Sunday mornings.  It is a large shed with a galvanized iron roof, with bleacher seats!  Of course it may be used for other things as well.
     The soldier whose arm I amputated is doing much better and is much more cheerful.  [Capt. John] Mihalick just came in with a tale.  He took care of two civilian women who had fractured femurs [upper leg bones] and had just been put in casts today.  They were injured about three weeks ago.  One said she hadn't urinated since morning.  The woman staying with them tried to catheterize her and couldn't so John did.  Then the other one decided she hadn't urinated either!  John told her to try some more!
  Today I had a haircut.  These F.'s [Filipinos] are certainly strong on the neck line!  There is no use arguing in making the man unhappy (or rather, there is just no use arguing!) so I let him go ahead, only making sure he'd take some off the top.  They don't use lather on the neck just wet it and shave!  He used no clips but did a good quick job.
     All my love, Eugene

February 15, 1945  I have a ward of women and children - mostly transferred from the 98th Evac at Tarlac.

Some of the patients on Gene's ward in Guimba who had been wounded by American bombs

15 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     It's good I saved two letters to answer for none came today and other outfits keep getting packages, but small matter.  Say, I just realized that yesterday was Valentine's Day!  Honey, are you still my Valentine?  (Says I out of the corner of my mouth "If you aren't I'll tan you good when I get my hands on you!")  You know (coy look with downcast eyes!) I'm still your Valentine!  I just finished an appendectomy on an F. young man.  It was plenty hot [infected]!  But it was easy to do.  I had some new patients on my officers' ward - FUO [fever of unknown origin] and possible kidney stones.  So it goes.  An F. came in this evening who tried to move a dud artillery shell.  That was one thing the N.G. [New Guinea] natives learned in a hurry - to stay strictly away from anything that looked like a bomb or a shell!  [Gene tells about a tragedy that wouldn't have happened if children had learned that lesson in my next post]  These confounded F.'s are getting worse than the Aussies ever were [about price gouging].  Some of the fellows said one charged him P4 [about a dollar] for 4 eggs and two small pieces of pork!  P6 for cooked chicken.  There is no excuse for it.  An hour and a half later.  [Capt.? Herb] Nigg and I worked on the F.  He had the darnedest set of holes in his hide.  There must have been 50 in all - most of them very tiny.  But I've seen some soldiers who had as many as 200!
     What a snow you're having!  Honey, can't you get someone to shovel it for you?  It's too bad I can't mail you an F. to do the work for you.  One or two pesos a day and some food is all he'd ask. ... But maybe he'd want to plow using carabao and that would scare all the kids and dogs in town!
     All my love, Eugene

Look to the Bridges! (53)

     The war was far from over, but the Americans could take pride in what their engineers could accomplish.  Here is an article from an unidentified newspaper that was in Gene's scrapbook:

WRECKED BRIDGES TELL STORY OF JAP FAILURE IN PHILIPPINES:

American Engineers Did More in 26 Days to Repair War Damage on Luzon

Than Nips Accomplished in Three Years

     Central Plains Command Post, Luzon - (A.P.) - You need do no more than follow the American troops down this rich valley from Lingayen to Manila to see why Japan has muffed her chance at empire.

Modified Rand McNally map showing locations mentioned in the article

     When the Fourteenth corps troops made their blitz to the capital they ran into all sorts of blasted bridges.  But at least half of the big bridges - the ones that gave the greatest trouble - hadn't been blown by the Japanese at all.  They were the unrepaired remnants of bridges the Americans blasted in their withdrawal in 1941.  The Japanese had never repaired them although they were the economic arteries of one of the richest areas captured by Nippon.

     In the main, the Japanese replaced them with flimsy makeshift spans reachable only via tortuous detours scarcely able to support heavy traffic and almost every one a constant bottleneck.  At Bambam, for example, the parallel railroad and highway trestles had been dropped into the river.  I saw them first from the air and remarked to the pilot "the Japs did a good job on those two."

     But when I passed thru Bambam [Bambang?] with the troops later I saw my error.  The steel wire reinforcing that hung from the jagged, broken concrete blocks was black with old rust.  The Japanese didn't perform that artistic job of demolition at all - we did back in 1941.  Two big spans - linking rich Tarlac and Pangasinan and the northern provinces to Manila's ship piers via railroad and road - hadn't been repaired in three years.  Down between them on the river's surface was their solution, a one-way small piling treadway on a pontoon.  They didn't get around to blowing that one up but even so our engineers had to strengthen it before the big stuff could move across.

     When we looked that area over, Maj. Reginald Jackson ... used the words of the major league baseball scout after watching a raw lefthander "Japan as an empire builder is several seasons away."

     My retort was that after she has been pushed all the way thru this current meat grinder she'll be a hundred seasons away.

     I backtracked the troops after reaching Manila and I can tell you this - that after twenty-six days, the supply men and engineers of the Fourteenth corps of the United States army had better bridges between Lingayen and Manila than the Japanese had after three years.

     The bridges were only part of the answer.

     Between Calumpit and Malolos, the national road - the Lincoln highway of Luzon - contains a five-or six-mile segment that was not hard surfaced.  You ought to ride that stretch in a jeep after three years of Japanese maintenance.  We drove over it never more than ten miles an hour.  I was so bounced and bumped that the canteen in my belt was bent.

     These were physical evidences that a would-be empire builder had sliced himself off a chunk that his protuberant incisors couldn't even nibble at.

     The greater answer was in the eyes of the people.

     There was the old shop keeper at Balintawak on the outskirts of Manila who dashed up to the jeep of Maj. Gen. Robert S. Beightler, Thirty-seventh division commander, with an armful of cold beer.

     He saw the two stars on our jeep, jumped up and down, waved his arms and yelled, "Welcome, welcome.  No more Japs.  No more of those _____ Japs."

     Again he waved his arms and hunted for stronger words.

     "Hallelujah," I suggested.

     "Hallelujah, Hallelujah.  No more _____ Japs."

     There - it occurred to me - was an Asiatic small businessman, perhaps representative of the business core of Asia, celebrating with American oaths the end of Japan's program of "Asia for the Asiatics." [The Japanese had declared that they would be the protector of the Orient.]

     The bitterness, the utter hatred they had wrought among these people in three years was, when you thought it over, far more eloquent testimonial to their failure than the bridges they didn't rebuild.

Cars, Cigars and Sugar Cane (52)

After being stuck in the New Guinea jungle for a while, Gene is enjoying the cars, towns, and markets.  He is interested in learning about how things are done in the Philippines and is able to do this because there isn't much threat from the Japanese in this area.

13 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     This afternoon Steve, our Red Cross man, asked me if I wanted to go with him to a town about 15 or 20 miles from here.  I'd spoken to him about going some time.  McDaniels went along.  Steve bought this '38 Chevrolet from a civilian, or rather the Red Cross bought it a la Steve.  Ordnance worked it over and it went OK until a few days ago when it took to stopping - vapor lock, defective fuel pump or something.  He thought he had it fixed.  We left about 1:30.  Just a mile from our destination it began its old tricks.  If allowed to cool down it would start.  We got into town and walked around to see the sights.  Practically all the buildings (business and so forth) had been burned by the Japs.  In some places there were the bodies of as many as a dozen cars.  They must have been late models from the looks of them.  There was one street of buildings (poor ones) still standing and doing some business.  I priced some cigars - 30 centavos each [about 14¢; in U.S prices ranged from 4¢ to $1 each, but the Philippines produced lots of tobacco, and even women there smoked large cigars].  I laughed at them! 

Filipina woman smoking a cigar

And the wooden sole slippers the women wear - 13 pesos [about $6]!  We asked F.'s [Filipinos] how much such things were worth - cigars 5 centavos and the slippers P1 - were the proper prices.  But no doubt some Yanks are fools enough to pay it.
     There were still Jap handbills plastered on the walls.  The market was some market.  Originally it was a good block long, though some of it had been destroyed.  The people say that under the Japs, they seldom held market days because the Japs would just take what they wanted.  Even though this was afternoon part of the market was still crowded.  Such a display (and smell!) of food.  Numerous large trays of dried shrimp (all [parts] of the shrimp!) ranging from about 1 inch to 6 inches in length, a dried flat fish resembling shiners, fresh meat, leaf and root vegetables, peanuts, dried corn and various confection things.  There were a few small stalls of dry goods.  I took a picture of one corner of the thing. 


Sugar cane press near Guimba

     Then we went on Steve's errand and the car [vapor] locked some more.  We stopped in at a hospital motor pool and their mechanic couldn't decide what it was.  So we borrowed a jeep and came home in that, for we had no yen to sit out on the "lone prairie" all night, especially since a few stray Japs wander around at night.  I spotted several "cane squeezin' " places on the way up so on the way back I took a picture of a carabao-powered press.  The press is really just two heavy steel rollers about a foot wide between which the cane is fed three or four stalks at a time with an arrangement to catch the juice.  But I think I messed up the picture for I didn't turn it all the way and took another picture over [it].  So I shall borrow a jeep some other time and go back for some picturesque rice stacks of which I want a picture.
     The fellows who went to the grand opening of the nightclub figure they got a yenzzing [were hoodwinked or deceived]!  For their 10 P they had a good chop suey dinner , a drink of rum and some sort of wine in plenty and some dancing!  They said the gals were nice (apparently too nice).  All the guys were home by 9:30 which is our curfew hour.  They say they'll mark that 10 pesos to charity.  I had a nip of F. scotch - it is really brandy, I think.  Not bad, but not good!  Some of our men have helped other outfits move to a city (Manila [either Beth guessed and wrote it when she copied the letter, or the censor missed it]) and report they are glad we aren't there.  They drove trucks.  They say they were all sniped at but that the Japs are punk shots!  The men who know (I mean they've been on the receiving end) say that the Jap equipment - guns, tanks, artillery, and etc. - on this island is much better stuff than the Japs had in New Guinea.  Steve went to a city on business one day.  That night he stayed with an F. family.  They took him upstairs to sleep.  He slept well.  In the morning he looked around - no one upstairs or downstairs.  The family all slept in foxholes that night!

Sunday in the Philippines (51)

     Roman Catholicism arrived in the Philippines with the Spanish in the sixteenth century, and various Protestant religions came with the Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.  In 1945, the country was overwhelmingly Catholic, but there were various other Christian churches around.

Church (Catholic?) in Guimba

11 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     No mail today, but I've had so much lately I can't complain!  This morning McDaniels and I went to church in town - a Methodist Church.  I was amazed to learn that almost every village and town has its protestant church - mission supported, of course. It was scheduled for 8:40.  When we arrived there were about 12 soldiers, and only 4 F.'s [Filipinos]. It didn't start until about 8:50.  After that the F.'s kept coming in until the place was crowded.  There were lots of entire families. Sunday School was to follow.  The piano was sadly out of tune.  They hymns were sung very slowly and with some surprising accents, but with a great deal of enthusiasm.  Just before the benediction the minister asked if anyone wished to give thanksgiving.  Two young fellows and a girl went forward to the altar and knelt during the singing of the last hymn, prayer and benediction.  The one young man was dressed in a spotless white something-finer-than-dinner pants and blouse shirt.  He carefully took out a white handkerchief on which to kneel.  The other one was dressed [in] a similar outfit of a delicate purple-red.  They must have been real dandies!  I enjoyed the service very much.  There must have been 20 GI's in all.  We walked back to the hospital with a very Americanized youth who works on one of the wards, and whose home was in a large city [note that he couldn't name the city because of censoring] where he attended the Baptist Church.

Filipino patient (father behind?) and nurse, with Gene on the left, and
Reese (a ward man?) on the right

     Sunday afternoon you'd think you were back in the States on a visiting day.  There are dozens of F. men, women and children who come to visit the civilian and guerrilla patients.  It adds color!
     At long last I obtained a .45.  Now I hope I can keep it.  An officer patient gave it to me as he was being transferred.  What firepower I'll have!  We still have to pack guns with us wherever we go.  It does seem peculiar to carry a gun to church - pilgrim father style!  But the F.'s probably wouldn't like it if we snagged a pig or chicken on the way home.  We are having ice to put in our battery acid drinking mixture [presumably he means the powdered drink they get with rations].  It makes it more palatable (besides being good, as Hi [Armstrong] would say).

February 12, 1945  [Maj. Cy] Burroughs [not a favorite!] and I work together.  Maj. Nigg joined us.  There goes my majority [chance for advancement to major]!

12 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     ...  I amputated the arm of a poor boy.  It had become gangrenous.  He was wounded a week ago.  He's not in good shape, despite maximum doses of penicillin and five blood transfusions.  We didn't even tell him what we were going to do for he was in low spirits anyway and doesn't realize any too well what is going on.  These war casualties are pathetic, but they are usually cheerful and uncomplaining.  What brave lads.  Maybe I'm a bit depressed tonight.  We had a notice today that no one will be considered for rotation [for leave home] until after 30 months continuous overseas service.  [Gene and most of the other original 92nd Evac. docs had only been there 20 months.] That means not until next year for us, and then we probably won't send [but] one officer in more than 2 or 3 months.  So I guess we may as well pray for an early peace!  There is some kind of deal afoot tonight.  There is going to be an opening of a "nightclub" with a cover charge of P 10 [about $4.60]!  That's a lot of dinero for a chicken dinner and some drinks!  It seems to me there must be some added attraction, though no one seems to know what to expect.  Quite a few of the officers are going.  Now if it was a chicken for a P 2 [about $1] and maybe some drinks I'd be tempted to go.  Hi [Armstrong], Sparky [Adams], and I will hang back and see what comes of it. [As you will see in my next post, that was sensible!]

Barber shop set up in a tent in Guimba for the GI's and guerrillas

     Neeb has been over here 36 months.  He's been with us since Mac [Maj. Richard McIlroy] and [Capt.] Roy [Swanson?] left, but we still haven't had a quota that will allow him to go home - he's really in a mood tonight!  He's engaged but not married.  I know what these hills look like - more like some of the groups of hills out on the California desert!  Now if they were clear of Japs I'd be tempted to do some mountain climbing.  But don't worry I shan't.  Some of the fellows (4 to a tent) hire a F. a peso a day [46¢] to clean up their tent, shine their shoes and so forth.  How they keep them busy I don't know.  But I'll be darned if I like the idea!  The F. promptly considers you and all your things his property!  He lies on your bed, looks thru your stuff, etc.  I saw one of them drinking from Varley's water bag today.  It reminds me of Rochester and Jack Benny!  Which makes me think - usually we've had movies long before this on our invasions.  No doubt there are too many base section commandos [rear echelon, who usually don't have to face the enemy] already in.  But those fellows also had a taste of Jap infiltration tactics in some spots.  An officer on my ward today asked where I lived.  He's from Enid, Oklahoma and has been to Monument Lake [Colorado] fishing a number of times.  Imagine that!  He certainly admires out country!

Letter from Guimba (50)

     The fighting was fierce for Munõz and the operating rooms in the school were busy for the 92nd Evacuation Hospital, but now the hostilities have moved elsewhere.  The doctors and ward men can breathe easier for a time and just care for their patients, and Gene can write letters home.

The officers' ward set up in the Guimba school

10 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     Here I sit at some school marm's desk - a fancy hardwood job with drawers and everything (the desk I mean, not the school marm).  I'm O.D. (officer of the day).  I hope it will be quiet.  Our casualties have fallen off.  They cleared the town [Munõz, but Gene can't mention it in a letter or the censor's will cut it out] at last.  The radio said our patch of fighting was the fiercest so far.  Wouldn't we get the spot!  But thank goodness, they haven't bothered us yet.  Our working hours have been without disturbance by Jap planes, air alerts, artillery shelling or anything!  Certainly not like out other affairs.


Guimba carabao grazing



Guimba women washing clothes

Guimba man "dunking" carabao and cart

    This morning about 10 I took a look at the sky and mountains and loaded some color film and tore out.  The sun was bright, but with a bank of clouds rising.  I'd been watching for days for the conditions to be right to photograph some rice stacks with the mountains clear enough to show.  Well, in about 20 minutes I'd taken a whole roll.  One was of a carabao grazing near us (I leaned over the fence).  Then some F.'s [Filipinos] coming up a path.  Then some women washing clothes at a little stream a few hundred yards away.  Then a man "dunking" his carabao in the stream, still yoked to the cart and his little boy sitting in the cart, then two of the rice stacks.  Then one toward the hospital.  Then one of a lady and her possessions with some cute girls in a carabao cart.  I talked to her a while.  She is the wife of a physician who is with some guerrilla outfit.  Her home at ------- [censored] had been burned by shellfire.  She had things done up in straw bags.  But she was happy - the Americans are back!  "We can build another house!"  Her husband's father and brother are both doctors.  The father was in another cart.  He was a nice-looking elderly gentleman but spoke no English.  He spoke Spanish!  The daughters were about 7 and 8, very cute and bright-eyed.  They each wore small gold earrings.  Later - I was just over to Cohen's ward to see a patient.  He's a ward man now..  Back to the (this will be interrupted frequently!) photography.  I have hopes that it will be a very good roll - the sky was quite blue. Usually there is a good deal of haze in the sky.


Physician's wife in Guimba

     It's interesting to have the officers' ward.  I find out lots of things that are going on that I wouldn't otherwise.  Did you notice on the rim of the [artillery] shell ashtray the indentation?  That was where a shell fragment hit the shell.  I had to smooth it down with a file so it wouldn't dig into the table.  You've no idea the number of days we sat on that blank blank boat!  But golly I was tired of it.  Remember Harper?  He came around today and we found he was on the boat ahead of us.  It was the one we had trouble with at night!  It was always dropping back and we'd be just a short distance from them and it made their skipper jittery and mad.  The men at the bridges [of the two boats] would hurl insults at each other in great style.  It was funny!  Harper looks the same though much grayer.  He's with a malaria control unit.
     Yes, that's right about the Jap planes being practically non-existent here and I'm glad!  I was a darn sight more scared to have to be in a tent operating and not able to see the - - planes than I was the night the Nips visited us!  This afternoon we had a 10-piece orchestra (F.) playing for the patients.  One guitarist had a very nice voice and sang some Spanish and American songs.  The men especially liked one song that had "Pom Pom" in it [in WWII, pom poms were bombs and also slang for women's breasts].  I'm certain it didn't mean the same as it does among the N.G.'s [Pom Pom Valley is in New Guinea]!
     We had a wounded Jap in one of the wards.  A GI patient saw him, grabbed a stick and began to beat him!  He's apt to be court marshaled for such an act and he should be.  The poor devil [the prisoner] (rather a big one - he's a whopper!) hid out for 4 or 5 days waiting for an American Patrol.  He knew better than to try to surrender to the guerrillas.  When he did find one and came out with his hands up, they thought he was a decoy so dumped a bunch of mortar shells behind him to clean out any lurkers.  The Jap flopped but had a piece of fragment in his leg.  They got a lot of information out of him.
     I laughed at Mary X's remark re the pictures of coral, "What a lot of handsome table centerpiece material goes to waste in the Pacific!"  I'll never forget the odds and ends she picked up in the woods one day and made the cleverest item.
     All my love, Eugene

The Aftermath of the Cabanatuan Raid (49)

     When Gene finally gets a breather, he puts two and two together and realizes why the 92nd Evacuation Hospital moved to Guimba, and belatedly recognizes the danger involved in that move.  He also mentions a new development in saving lives, and the types of wounds the doctors are seeing that are different from the New Guinea campaign.  Since the Filipinos were more involved in fighting with the Japanese, there are more civilian casualties, too.

One of the post-op wards of the 92nd Evacuation Hospital in Guimba

February 3, 1945  Working days and late at night.  I got a 45 automatic!

February 4, 1945
     Every campaign my diary gets shorter and shorter!  We set up and began operating 30 Jan. but had few patients until Feb. 1st.  Since then it has been 11:30 P.M. to 2:30 A.M. every night and all day, doing surgery.  Jan. 31st we had the 500 liberated POW's.  In fact, I believe that is why we set up here and then they decided to use us for casualties [from the nearby heavy fighting].
     It was amazing and pathetic to see and talk to these men.  The improvising they had done - lived on rice, grass, anything!  One officer was filling a Red Cross pipe (they had made their own!) with tobacco from a cigarette.  I offered him my pipe pouch.  He began carefully to knock out the tobacco and save it.  Then he laughed at himself!  They thought our C rations were wonderful.  They'd had no bread for 3 years.  I never saw so many photographers and correspondents before in my life.  Their [the POW] rescue was an amazing feat.  MacArthur came [the] next day to see them. but I was busy in surgery and didn't see him.  Heard about Art Fouret [he was one of Gene's Trinidad patients, and in December was on one of the Japanese POW ships going to Japan that was sunk by US forces].
     Our census is running over 500, even with most of the POW gone.  We have a lot of F's [Filipinos] - guerrillas and civilians.  Most of our casualties are coming from Munõz where the Japs are fighting bitterly to keep us from taking San Jose and thus block them from the south.  They are using dug-in tanks as pill boxes, and all the Infantry has to knock them out is hand and rifle grenades.

Modified Rand McNally map showing Guimba,
Munõz and San Jose

     We are using prepared whole blood.  It was taken and processed Jan. 9 in Frisco [San Francisco] and is good for 21 days or so.  It is a real life saver, to be able to give whole blood at a few minutes notice, without [blood] typing.
     On Biak we saw many mortar shell wounds.  Here most are high velocity Jap 47 mm tank shells and other artillery.  Smaller fragments seem to do the same amount of damage.
     We have guerrillas guarding our perimeter.  There are alarms at times, but mostly we are too busy to notice.  The help the F.'s give us around the hosp. and the Red Cross (girls) is mighty fine and takes quite a load off the ward men.
     I had my first mail Jan. 31st.  It was wonderful to hear from Beth.

Gene had written on the following unidentified newspaper article: "He told me this story, for I had him on my ward"

PRISONER TAKES TIME IN LEAVING JAP CAMP

     United States Army Base, Luzon, Feb. 6 - (I.N.S.) - Here is the story of one Allied prisoner who did not get out of the Cabanatuan camp when American Rangers raided it - at least not until a few days later.  He is Edwin Rose, 65, of Toronto, Canada, who said he had "heard all the shooting and knew the Americans had arrived," but thought they were there to stay so he simply turned over in his prison bunk and went back to sleep again.

     Rose, who was a purser on a ship plying the Singapore to Hong Kong run, and was caught in Manila when war broke out, declared he awakened the morning following the Rangers' dramatic midnight rescue to fine "Cabanatuan all my own."

     He methodically dressed and shaved and then contacted some Filipinos for an escort and strolled casually into the Sixth army headquarters, a cane tucked under his arm, a few days later.

February 8, 1945

     We continue busy with casualties, mostly from Munõz near San Jose.  For Infantry to take such positions is costly.

     We did 60 cases on our busiest day - not as busy as Biak, but still marked.  We've been at it a little over a week

     I received 30 letters and cards yesterday, and 25 2 days before.

     The Japs use their 47 mm tank guns to fire point blank at individual soldiers.  One fellow said he dodged 3 times, but the 4th time the shell came thru 1 1/2 feet of earth to wound him moderately.  Most wounds are HE [high explosive] shell fragments.  How they shatter bones! [Note all of the casts on the men in the photo above.]

     In a very heavy rain 3 nights ago, some of the officers' tents went down.  The water just stands in these rice paddies.  We have a lot of F. civilians and guerrillas with old and new wounds.

8 Feb. '45

Beloved,

     Will wonders never cease!  Yesterday evening I received 30 letters and cards!  I read between operations all evening!

     Alleene quotes little Pete, "I sure want to be a soldier when I get big, Daddy, but I'm going to be a soldier like Doc Pfile."  Pete senior said, "Oh, a soldier doctor?"  "No, I'm going to be a soldier like Doc Pfile and not get killed!"  He has the proper outlook I'd say.

     Later - Nothing to do my foot!  We admitted patients anyway and I worked all afternoon.  Perhaps it will be quieter this evening.

     Later - We just looked into the arm of a very sick boy, but it doesn't seem that he has gas gangrene.  That is encouraging.  We have two new second looies [second lieutenants], MAC's [medical administrative corps] promoted from the ranks.  They really were outstanding fellows.  That was one of the boards on which I was.

     That was so good of Dick and Doris [Gaines] to meet you [at the train station] when you arrived in Trinidad [Colorado] from Freeport [Illinois] and again with the Workmans when you returned from Denver.  Very thoughtful.  Gee but I laugh about your surprise at the phone.  I'm so glad you have it.  Mmmm!  How good it would feel to climb into a tub of hot water and take a good soaking bath.  Did I ever tell you there are beauty shops here even in little towns!  Amazing!

     All my love, Eugene

February 9, 1945
     1162 patients admitted, not counting the POW (except 42 entered as patients).  Our census is well over 600.  I just not found out that the first night we were here, a Recon [reconnaissance] outfit reached here a few hours before us and that this was their farthest penetration toward Munõz!  A Maj. came up to the school that midnight and was highly surprised to find a hospital here before the Infantry.  Golly, I wouldn't have slept well that night if I'd known!  No wonder we had no patients for 2 days - there was no one ahead of us, to do any fighting!

9 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     Things are quiet today.  I guess someone else is taking them to give us a breathing spell.  I meant for you to indicate nothing of troubles we have had.  It was just that one night when we had a brush with a few Japs and they (paragraph cut by censor).  Panic and wild shooting and that is always bad.  But it won't happen again for we won't be caught napping.  It is too long a story to write.  I'll just have to tell it some day (8 wounded - 4 killed).
     Last evening I heard this one for the first time.  It seems that the evening we pulled in here we were ahead of the Infantry!  A Reco patrol had arrived that afternoon and set up a perimeter but didn't know what was ahead.  Of course there was no real danger for the guerrillas had held this town for weeks.  I heard a Major challenged by our guards about midnight and how surprised he was to find a hospital here but thought nothing of it at the time.  The army is full of surprises.  Now I understand it.  Maybe I wouldn't have slept so well had I known we were ahead of the Infantry.  To make it worse, that afternoon three trucks of us (officer with each) were separated from the rest.  I was in the last of the three.  We breezed thru this town and I thought it was the one.  We went about a mile of so beyond and I was about ready to stop, having heard about people blundering into the enemy's lines!  Then the lead truck stopped and we came back.  Some of our crazy MAC's and the Chaplain were driving around in a jeep, seeing the country last week, when they saw a bunch of men hugging the ground.  They stopped and flopped also.  A sergeant told them with plenty of embellishments what they should do, and take the jeep with them and that the Japs had been firing with artillery at everything that moved!  So they got and quickly!  It's good I'm busy most of the time, then I don't get into trouble!  But I realize now what a golden opportunity our first landing (Hollandia) was for souvenirs.  I thought they'd all be like that!
     None of the days lately have been clear enough for good pictures.  I don't get much chance to pick and choose, either the time or the place.  Now if I had a car and plenty of spare time, I might do better.  But really, honey, if you like the pictures that's all I care about.
     Some of the boys are hanging out of the window looking at a comely F. gal!  They seem to like what they see!

A photo of Zariff

     Say, that picture of Zariff is a dandy.  And he is a dandy.  I can almost hear and smell the fresh pine breeze!  Also horse!  That certainly was nice of Sibyl [the horse's owner] to take you in [I think this was in Denver] especially with hotel rooms so hard to get.  Well, one of the "borrowed" fellows in surgery just saw the picture of Zariff on the table.  It developed that he worked one summer on the Hayden Ranch at Greenhorn [near Glenwood Springs in Colorado].  How he likes our country!
     Too bad so many can't get penicillin. [Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but it wasn't until 1940 that it was made into a stable powder and could be mass produced.] But it is all overseas.  We practically have barrels of it.  Only the forward hospitals get it, but we get all we want.  It definitely helps.  I was thinking just recently that if we amputated like they did in the Civil War, we'd have a heap of arms and legs window high.  As it is, it takes much longer to save a leg than it is to cut it off, but the results are gratifying.  I amputated a testicle but he had two!
     Some break there.  I just helped a sad case.  The boy had a chunk of shell that cut his spinal cord at the level of the 2nd lumbar vertebrae [the vertebra that is at the waist; damage at this level will probably cause paralysis in one or both legs, and loss of control of the bowels and bladder].

February 10, 1945  No casualties.